Pictures from Italy, by Charles Dickens

CHAPTER I— GOING THROUGH FRANCE

On a fine Sunday morning in the Midsummer time and weather of eighteen hundred and forty-four, it was, my good
friend, when — don’t be alarmed; not when two travellers might have been observed slowly making their way over that
picturesque and broken ground by which the first chapter of a Middle Aged novel is usually attained — but when an
English travelling-carriage of considerable proportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon near Belgrave
Square, London, was observed (by a very small French soldier; for I saw him look at it) to issue from the gate of the
Hotel Meurice in the Rue Rivoli at Paris.

I am no more bound to explain why the English family travelling by this carriage, inside and out, should be starting
for Italy on a Sunday morning, of all good days in the week, than I am to assign a reason for all the little men in
France being soldiers, and all the big men postilions; which is the invariable rule. But, they had some sort of reason
for what they did, I have no doubt; and their reason for being there at all, was, as you know, that they were going to
live in fair Genoa for a year; and that the head of the family purposed, in that space of time, to stroll about,
wherever his restless humour carried him.

And it would have been small comfort to me to have explained to the population of Paris generally, that I was that
Head and Chief; and not the radiant embodiment of good humour who sat beside me in the person of a French Courier —
best of servants and most beaming of men! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I, who, in the
shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to no account at all.

There was, of course, very little in the aspect of Paris — as we rattled near the dismal Morgue and over the Pont
Neuf — to reproach us for our Sunday travelling. The wine-shops (every second house) were driving a roaring trade;
awnings were spreading, and chairs and tables arranging, outside the cafes, preparatory to the eating of ices, and
drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoe-blacks were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggons
clattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streets across the River, were so many dense perspectives of
crowd and bustle, parti-coloured nightcaps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, large boots, and shaggy heads of hair; nothing at
that hour denoted a day of rest, unless it were the appearance, here and there, of a family pleasure-party, crammed
into a bulky old lumbering cab; or of some contemplative holiday-maker in the freest and easiest dishabille, leaning
out of a low garret window, watching the drying of his newly polished shoes on the little parapet outside (if a
gentleman), or the airing of her stockings in the sun (if a lady), with calm anticipation.

Once clear of the never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven pavement which surrounds Paris, the first three days of
travelling towards Marseilles are quiet and monotonous enough. To Sens. To Avallon. To Chalons. A sketch of one day’s
proceedings is a sketch of all three; and here it is.

We have four horses, and one postilion, who has a very long whip, and drives his team, something like the Courier of
Saint Petersburgh in the circle at Astley’s or Franconi’s: only he sits his own horse instead of standing on him. The
immense jack-boots worn by these postilions, are sometimes a century or two old; and are so ludicrously
disproportionate to the wearer’s foot, that the spur, which is put where his own heel comes, is generally halfway up
the leg of the boots. The man often comes out of the stable-yard, with his whip in his hand and his shoes on, and
brings out, in both hands, one boot at a time, which he plants on the ground by the side of his horse, with great
gravity, until everything is ready. When it is — and oh Heaven! the noise they make about it! — he gets into the boots,
shoes and all, or is hoisted into them by a couple of friends; adjusts the rope harness, embossed by the labours of
innumerable pigeons in the stables; makes all the horses kick and plunge; cracks his whip like a madman; shouts ‘En
route — Hi!’ and away we go. He is sure to have a contest with his horse before we have gone very far; and then he
calls him a Thief, and a Brigand, and a Pig, and what not; and beats him about the head as if he were made of wood.

There is little more than one variety in the appearance of the country, for the first two days. From a dreary plain,
to an interminable avenue, and from an interminable avenue to a dreary plain again. Plenty of vines there are in the
open fields, but of a short low kind, and not trained in festoons, but about straight sticks. Beggars innumerable there
are, everywhere; but an extraordinarily scanty population, and fewer children than I ever encountered. I don’t believe
we saw a hundred children between Paris and Chalons. Queer old towns, draw-bridged and walled: with odd little towers
at the angles, like grotesque faces, as if the wall had put a mask on, and were staring down into the moat; other
strange little towers, in gardens and fields, and down lanes, and in farm-yards: all alone, and always round, with a
peaked roof, and never used for any purpose at all; ruinous buildings of all sorts; sometimes an hotel de ville,
sometimes a guard-house, sometimes a dwelling-house, sometimes a chateau with a rank garden, prolific in dandelion, and
watched over by extinguisher-topped turrets, and blink-eyed little casements; are the standard objects, repeated over
and over again. Sometimes we pass a village inn, with a crumbling wall belonging to it, and a perfect town of
out-houses; and painted over the gateway, ‘Stabling for Sixty Horses;’ as indeed there might be stabling for sixty
score, were there any horses to be stabled there, or anybody resting there, or anything stirring about the place but a
dangling bush, indicative of the wine inside: which flutters idly in the wind, in lazy keeping with everything else,
and certainly is never in a green old age, though always so old as to be dropping to pieces. And all day long, strange
little narrow waggons, in strings of six or eight, bringing cheese from Switzerland, and frequently in charge, the
whole line, of one man, or even boy — and he very often asleep in the foremost cart — come jingling past: the horses
drowsily ringing the bells upon their harness, and looking as if they thought (no doubt they do) their great blue
woolly furniture, of immense weight and thickness, with a pair of grotesque horns growing out of the collar, very much
too warm for the Midsummer weather.

Then, there is the Diligence, twice or thrice a-day; with the dusty outsides in blue frocks, like butchers; and the
insides in white nightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking, like an idiot’s head; and its
Young-France passengers staring out of window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles awfully shading
their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in their National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple of
passengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and out of sight in no time. Steady old Cures come jolting
past, now and then, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as no Englishman would believe in; and bony
women dawdle about in solitary places, holding cows by ropes while they feed, or digging and hoeing or doing field-work
of a more laborious kind, or representing real shepherdesses with their flocks — to obtain an adequate idea of which
pursuit and its followers, in any country, it is only necessary to take any pastoral poem, or picture, and imagine to
yourself whatever is most exquisitely and widely unlike the descriptions therein contained.

You have been travelling along, stupidly enough, as you generally do in the last stage of the day; and the
ninety-six bells upon the horses — twenty-four apiece — have been ringing sleepily in your ears for half an hour or so;
and it has become a very jog-trot, monotonous, tiresome sort of business; and you have been thinking deeply about the
dinner you will have at the next stage; when, down at the end of the long avenue of trees through which you are
travelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins
to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a
smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it.
Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack-crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi!
En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite pour
l’amour de Dieu! crick-crack-crick-crack; crick, crick, crick; bump, jolt, crack, bump, crick-crack; round the corner,
up the narrow street, down the paved hill on the other side; in the gutter; bump, bump; jolt, jog, crick, crick, crick;
crack, crack, crack; into the shop-windows on the left-hand side of the street, preliminary to a sweeping turn into the
wooden archway on the right; rumble, rumble, rumble; clatter, clatter, clatter; crick, crick, crick; and here we are in
the yard of the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or; used up, gone out, smoking, spent, exhausted; but sometimes making a false start
unexpectedly, with nothing coming of it — like a firework to the last!

The landlady of the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or is here; and the landlord of the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or is here; and the femme
de chambre of the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or is here; and a gentleman in a glazed cap, with a red beard like a bosom friend,
who is staying at the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or, is here; and Monsieur le Cure is walking up and down in a corner of the yard
by himself, with a shovel hat upon his head, and a black gown on his back, and a book in one hand, and an umbrella in
the other; and everybody, except Monsieur le Cure, is open-mouthed and open-eyed, for the opening of the carriage-door.
The landlord of the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or, dotes to that extent upon the Courier, that he can hardly wait for his coming
down from the box, but embraces his very legs and boot-heels as he descends. ‘My Courier! My brave Courier! My friend!
My brother!’ The landlady loves him, the femme de chambre blesses him, the garcon worships him. The Courier asks if his
letter has been received? It has, it has. Are the rooms prepared? They are, they are. The best rooms for my noble
Courier. The rooms of state for my gallant Courier; the whole house is at the service of my best of friends! He keeps
his hand upon the carriage-door, and asks some other question to enhance the expectation. He carries a green leathern
purse outside his coat, suspended by a belt. The idlers look at it; one touches it. It is full of five-franc pieces.
Murmurs of admiration are heard among the boys. The landlord falls upon the Courier’s neck, and folds him to his
breast. He is so much fatter than he was, he says! He looks so rosy and so well!

The door is opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of the family gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The
sister of the lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma’amselle is charming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a
beautiful little boy! First little girl gets out. Oh, but this is an enchanting child! Second little girl gets out. The
landlady, yielding to the finest impulse of our common nature, catches her up in her arms! Second little boy gets out.
Oh, the sweet boy! Oh, the tender little family! The baby is handed out. Angelic baby! The baby has topped everything.
All the rapture is expended on the baby! Then the two nurses tumble out; and the enthusiasm swelling into madness, the
whole family are swept up-stairs as on a cloud; while the idlers press about the carriage, and look into it, and walk
round it, and touch it. For it is something to touch a carriage that has held so many people. It is a legacy to leave
one’s children.

The rooms are on the first floor, except the nursery for the night, which is a great rambling chamber, with four or
five beds in it: through a dark passage, up two steps, down four, past a pump, across a balcony, and next door to the
stable. The other sleeping apartments are large and lofty; each with two small bedsteads, tastefully hung, like the
windows, with red and white drapery. The sitting-room is famous. Dinner is already laid in it for three; and the
napkins are folded in cocked-hat fashion. The floors are of red tile. There are no carpets, and not much furniture to
speak of; but there is abundance of looking-glass, and there are large vases under glass shades, filled with artificial
flowers; and there are plenty of clocks. The whole party are in motion. The brave Courier, in particular, is
everywhere: looking after the beds, having wine poured down his throat by his dear brother the landlord, and picking up
green cucumbers — always cucumbers; Heaven knows where he gets them — with which he walks about, one in each hand, like
truncheons.

Dinner is announced. There is very thin soup; there are very large loaves — one apiece; a fish; four dishes
afterwards; some poultry afterwards; a dessert afterwards; and no lack of wine. There is not much in the dishes; but
they are very good, and always ready instantly. When it is nearly dark, the brave Courier, having eaten the two
cucumbers, sliced up in the contents of a pretty large decanter of oil, and another of vinegar, emerges from his
retreat below, and proposes a visit to the Cathedral, whose massive tower frowns down upon the court-yard of the inn.
Off we go; and very solemn and grand it is, in the dim light: so dim at last, that the polite, old, lanthorn-jawed
Sacristan has a feeble little bit of candle in his hand, to grope among the tombs with — and looks among the grim
columns, very like a lost ghost who is searching for his own.

Underneath the balcony, when we return, the inferior servants of the inn are supping in the open air, at a great
table; the dish, a stew of meat and vegetables, smoking hot, and served in the iron cauldron it was boiled in. They
have a pitcher of thin wine, and are very merry; merrier than the gentleman with the red beard, who is playing
billiards in the light room on the left of the yard, where shadows, with cues in their hands, and cigars in their
mouths, cross and recross the window, constantly. Still the thin Cure walks up and down alone, with his book and
umbrella. And there he walks, and there the billiard-balls rattle, long after we are fast asleep.

We are astir at six next morning. It is a delightful day, shaming yesterday’s mud upon the carriage, if anything
could shame a carriage, in a land where carriages are never cleaned. Everybody is brisk; and as we finish breakfast,
the horses come jingling into the yard from the Post-house. Everything taken out of the carriage is put back again. The
brave Courier announces that all is ready, after walking into every room, and looking all round it, to be certain that
nothing is left behind. Everybody gets in. Everybody connected with the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or is again enchanted. The
brave Courier runs into the house for a parcel containing cold fowl, sliced ham, bread, and biscuits, for lunch; hands
it into the coach; and runs back again.

What has he got in his hand now? More cucumbers? No. A long strip of paper. It’s the bill.

The brave Courier has two belts on, this morning: one supporting the purse: another, a mighty good sort of leathern
bottle, filled to the throat with the best light Bordeaux wine in the house. He never pays the bill till this bottle is
full. Then he disputes it.

He disputes it now, violently. He is still the landlord’s brother, but by another father or mother. He is not so
nearly related to him as he was last night. The landlord scratches his head. The brave Courier points to certain
figures in the bill, and intimates that if they remain there, the Hotel de l’Ecu d’Or is thenceforth and for ever an
hotel de l’Ecu de cuivre. The landlord goes into a little counting-house. The brave Courier follows, forces the bill
and a pen into his hand, and talks more rapidly than ever. The landlord takes the pen. The Courier smiles. The landlord
makes an alteration. The Courier cuts a joke. The landlord is affectionate, but not weakly so. He bears it like a man.
He shakes hands with his brave brother, but he don’t hug him. Still, he loves his brother; for he knows that he will be
returning that way, one of these fine days, with another family, and he foresees that his heart will yearn towards him
again. The brave Courier traverses all round the carriage once, looks at the drag, inspects the wheels, jumps up, gives
the word, and away we go!

It is market morning. The market is held in the little square outside in front of the cathedral. It is crowded with
men and women, in blue, in red, in green, in white; with canvassed stalls; and fluttering merchandise. The country
people are grouped about, with their clean baskets before them. Here, the lace-sellers; there, the butter and
egg-sellers; there, the fruit-sellers; there, the shoe-makers. The whole place looks as if it were the stage of some
great theatre, and the curtain had just run up, for a picturesque ballet. And there is the cathedral to boot:
scene-like: all grim, and swarthy, and mouldering, and cold: just splashing the pavement in one place with faint purple
drops, as the morning sun, entering by a little window on the eastern side, struggles through some stained glass panes,
on the western.

In five minutes we have passed the iron cross, with a little ragged kneeling-place of turf before it, in the
outskirts of the town; and are again upon the road.